Jake Arrieta, Kris Bryant come up big as Cubs win Arizona series

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Don’t look now, but Jake Arrieta is 5-2 with a 2.10 ERA in his last eight starts after beating Arizona on Sunday.

PHOENIX — If this is Kris Bryant’s idea of ‘‘brutal,’’ it’s hard to imagine what he thinks ease and comfort look like.

Two days after using the word to describe his lingering hand injury, Bryant finished off a 9-for-11 weekend that helped finish off the Diamondbacks in a three-game series and sent the Cubs back home in sole possession of first place in the National League Central.

Brutal?

‘‘It’s brutally fun to watch,’’ manager Joe Maddon said after a 7-2 victory Sunday gave the Cubs two wins in three games against the best team — record-wise — that remained on their schedule.

Continuing to play through a sprain at the base of his left pinkie suffered on a headfirst slide three weeks ago, Bryant went 3-for-4 with a walk and his first home run since July 30. He reached base in 13 of his 15 plate appearances in the series, raising his batting average to .294 and his OPS to .935.

‘‘I feel great,’’ said Bryant, who took off after making a slight mechanical adjustment early in the road trip to keep his bat through the strike zone longer. ‘‘I feel my head’s clear. I feel good in the box, focused on every pitch. Sometimes during the year you kind of get away from that, where you’re thinking too much and swinging at certain pitches that you don’t want to. Now I don’t feel like that.

‘‘You ride the wave as long as you can, but it’s not always going to be like that.’’

After the game, he dismissed questions about his hand.

‘‘It’s fine,’’ he said.

Bryant’s effort couldn’t have come at a better time for the Cubs, who have struggled offensively for much of the season, then lost their hottest hitter, Willson Contreras, to a hamstring injury Thursday.

‘‘[Contreras] has been our best player pretty much for the last couple of months,’’ said right-hander Jake Arrieta (12-8), who pitched six strong innings to continue his own six-week surge. ‘‘I think we’re capable of holding down the fort, especially until Willson gets back.

‘‘We’ve got a lot of winners in this clubhouse who can pick up the slack for Willson and make it a little bit easier for him to not feel like he has to rush back.’’

Arrieta has picked up the rotation since the start of July, going 5-2 with a 2.10 ERA in his last eight starts.

‘‘Hopefully Willson’s  a fast healer, but I think we’ll be OK,’’ said Bryant, who might prove to be the key to filling the offensive void.

His heads-up baserunning on the strangest play of the trip gave the Cubs a first-inning lead they never gave up. At second base with two outs, Bryant took off on a 3-2 pitch. He watched Diamondbacks starter Zack Godley strike out Victor Caratini but fall down as he threw the pitch, which skipped past the catcher. Bryant continued all the way around third to score.

<em>Bryant after hitting Sunday’s homer, his first since July 30 and second since a hand injury three weeks ago</em>.

Bryant after hitting Sunday’s homer, his first since July 30 and second since a hand injury three weeks ago.

The Cubs clung to a 2-1 lead until breaking the game open late. They scored four runs in the eighth, including a 463-foot three-run homer by Javy Baez, the sometimes-exasperating infielder who opened the trip with an inside-the-park homer Monday against the Giants but made a critical throwing error on a routine play in a loss Saturday to the Diamondbacks.

‘‘There’s times he can be frustrating,’’ Maddon said. ‘‘Other times, he hits three-run homers in the upper tank.’’

The Cubs’ schedule softens considerably the rest of the way, including the next 13 games against last-place teams.

‘‘I don’t look at breaks in the schedule; I don’t believe in that stuff,’’ Maddon said. ‘‘There’s always a trap in that thought.’’

But taking a one-game lead over the Cardinals back home for a weeklong homestand with 46 games left in the season, the scoreboard-watching has begun.

‘‘I thought it was going to bunch up,’’ Maddon said. ‘‘It’s going to be a real interesting finish to the Central this year.’’

Follow me on Twitter @GDubCub.

Email: gwittenmyer@suntimes.com

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